A Multidimensional Cadastral Topological Data Model: Design and Implementation

Abstract

Topologies are crucial for the cadastral data model. Considering the development of 3-D cadaster and temporal cadaster, 0-D–4-D multidimensional cadastral objects should be considered in the cadastral data model. There are few data models to support 0-D–4-D multidimensional cadastral objects and their topological relations, and some existing models represent the topological relations using complicated methods. This paper presents a multidimensional cadastral topological data model (MDCTDM). This model represents the topological relations of all cadastral objects simply and efficiently using a single basic element to associate the cadastral objects of each dimension in the same manner. Based on the generalized map, we extend the cell-tuple structure and propose an object-tuple structure for the MDCTDM. We design the data structure for the MDCTDM and implement it in a relational database. In this database, the topological relations of cadastral objects can be easily queried by using simple structured query language (SQL) statements. To verify the operations of the MDCTDM in the database, we describe a case of the insert operation. The case demonstrates that the operation can be implemented easily by SQL statements.